


Seventy-Two Red Balloons

by swagcat9000



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bad coping mechanisms, CSA, Child Abuse, Eddie Kaspbrak - Freeform, M/M, Mental Illness, Pennywise isn't real AU, Reddie, Richie Tozier - Freeform, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-06-26 14:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19769710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swagcat9000/pseuds/swagcat9000
Summary: Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak are still best friends after everything that happened, but some things are wrong. Richie doesn't seem to know that the clown wasn't real, and Eddie keeps trying to convince him otherwise, but it hasn't happened yet. They're both trying to heal from that long summer four years ago, and they help each other as best they can, yet some things haven't gone away. On the precipice of adulthood, they have so many things to figure out and decide to do, but can they do that without facing the past?





	1. The Fool

It had been nearly five years since the events of that summer, but sometimes it still felt like it had only been a few days. The rest of the Loser’s Club had become more distant, but Richie and Eddie were still best friends. At least, they felt like each other were all they had.  
The sleepovers they had almost every Friday had become a routine, and it was a routine they clung to out of fear. If broken, they didn’t know what would happen to them or their friendship, so they continued to stay at one of their houses a night each week.  
Eddie stared at Richie’s bedroom ceiling, praying for exhaustion to take over, but instead of closing his eyes, he traced over the posters and glow-in-the-dark stars that loomed above him. It had been this way ever since that summer-waiting for sleep to claim him, rather than shutting his eyes and letting it come. Putting himself to sleep was nearly impossible, because his thoughts were always certain to turn back to trauma and everything that happened, and he’d open his eyes again and try to think about something else or look at something else in the hopes that either the mental image or the thought of it would go away. He could fight off one or the other-the image or the lingering sensation-not both.  
He glanced over at Richie, his eyes closed, the impossibly long, dark eyelashes fluttering slightly. He looked so peaceful like this, asleep, but Eddie knew well enough that it was entirely possible that he was being tormented by his dreams. They talked about the nightmares sometimes, and Eddie was glad that most of his flashbacks happened while he was awake, so he had some chance of realizing it wasn’t real, so he or Richie could convince him that he was safe. Richie wasn’t quite as lucky, when he had nightmares, he was incapable of becoming aware of the inherent dullness of the dreams. At the time, he described them as being so vivid and realistic, when retrospectively, he could recognize how flat the sight and sensation was, and that the entire nightmare was plasticine in comparison to the real world.  
“Like it’s all happening in a dollhouse.” he said.  
Eddie sat up and pulled his knees to his chest. Richie stirred slightly, pulling the blanket down a few inches, revealing his chest. The scars, which had once been bleeding red scratches, were now white and raised. Eddie ran his hand over his own chest, feeling the bumps where his scars were through his nightshirt, and the feeling of them being touched brought back a twinge of pain. He knew it wasn’t real, rather, the memory of the pain from when they were inflicted, but he still winced a little.  
A can of soda that had lost its bubbles sat on the nightstand. Eddie grabbed it, drank the few sips left, placed it back on the coaster, and laid down, instinctively reaching for Richie’s hand. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on something besides the bad memories that threatened to surface. Listening to Richie breathing took his mind off it a little, as he tried to sync his short, borderline-asthma-attack breaths with the slow, sleepy ones.  
Sometime in what felt like forever, he fell asleep.  
Without opening his eyes, he reached for the other side of the bed as soon as he woke up, but his fingers only found the opposite edge of the mattress and cold blankets. Richie was already downstairs, brewing a pot of coffee and tucking a cigarette behind his ear, hidden by thick hair. They’d have coffee and go out for a morning walk, sharing the cig, and head back before they made it as far as the house where it happened.  
Neibolt House, the crackhead house, that brought about a sense of nostalgia, if it could be called such. It wasn’t a happy feeling, after everything that happened in there, but it was some form of yearning for the past. Eddie had spent far too much time, staring at his bedroom ceiling or at the red LED display on his alarm clock reading 2:57 AM, unable to shake the thoughts from his head, was nostalgia an inherently positive feeling? He still hadn’t come to a conclusion about why that house caused such a conflicting sense of longing for him, especially when he remembered the events that occurred within its walls. But he eventually fell asleep, forgot the internal debate until he remembered it again on another sleepless night.  
Sure enough, after he slipped on his shoes and headed down the stairs, he found Richie in the kitchen, staring absently at the dripping coffee. He had another nightmare; Eddie could tell because he hadn’t greeted him as soon as he entered the room. He wasn’t about to ask, though, because Richie could have waking flashbacks, too, just by thinking too much about it. Better to keep them confined to one state of consciousness, he thought.  
“Hey.” Eddie said, jumping up onto the counter. His eyes were level with Richie when he sat up there, otherwise, he was a few inches shorter. “Good morning.”  
Richie looked up, seeming a little dazed.  
“Morning. How’d you sleep?”  
“It was alright. You?” Eddie internally cursed himself for asking when he knew it’d be better not to.  
“I had another nightmare. It was-” he began.  
“You don’t have to tell me.”  
Richie ran his hand through his hair and brought the mugs out of the cabinet, clinking as he set them on the counter, then poured the coffee and handed one to Eddie. They drank in silence for a while, finishing off second and third cups until the pot was empty, and then without speaking decided to go outside. Richie led the way, in a gentler sense of the word. He decided to turn a certain direction, Eddie walked only slightly slower, so that he was an imperceptible half-step behind his friend at all times, and would turn the same way, almost synchronizing their motions.  
That morning, they headed down to the quarry, and walked around its edge until they reached the rusted chain link fence dividing the property and sat on the ground, lighting the cigarette, passing it back and forth. They rarely talked on the way out, enjoying the morning, but when the cigarette became a stub, real conversation began.  
Eddie extinguished it on a nearby rock, looking out over the water, glittering in the morning sunshine.  
“You ever think about jumping again?” he asked.  
Richie scoffed. “What, like when we were kids?”  
“Well, yeah, but not like when we were kids. As grown-ups, jumping off and going swimming just for fun?”  
“I never really thought about it, I mean, we’re adults now.”  
“I think it’d be fun. I don’t know what stops me from just doing it.”  
Thinking for a moment, Richie considered it. “I don’t know. Do you want to get everyone back together again and try?”  
“Maybe. It wouldn’t really feel the same, would it? I mean, after-”. He stopped himself and chose his next words carefully. “After what happened, it kind of felt like we didn’t have much in common besides-”. He paused again, this time for longer, giving up on trying to phrase it in a gentle manner, and didn’t say anything.  
“Spending a whole summer getting stalked by some fucking clown?” Richie finished.  
Eddie bit his lip, trying to figure out the most tactful way to correct him.  
“Richie, you know that wasn’t… real, right?”  
It had been constant throughout the course of their friendship ever since that summer, and as much as they tried to avoid the topic, it always came up. No matter how logically Eddie tried to convince him otherwise, Richie still kept talking about their stalker as though he were some monstrous freak dressed as a clown, even though he was just some normal creep.  
“Listen, you can say what you want. I know what happened and I know what I saw.” he snapped.  
Eddie stared at his feet, socks poking out of the toes of his worn sneakers, and decided to drop it.  
“You know, we’re still kids.” he said. “Neither of us are eighteen yet.”  
“I guess. What does that have to do with anything?”  
“We still have time?” Eddie tried.  
“Speaking of, what time is it?”  
He brought his wrist up and checked the time.  
Eddie sighed. “It’s almost nine. I have to go to work soon. We should probably head in and get ready, I don’t want to be late again.”  
“Alright. Let’s go then.”  
On the way back, they dropped the heavy conversation about the past and talked about simpler things, like work and plans for the summer. They were both saving up to move away from Derry, and although they hadn’t formally agreed on it, the feeling that they were going to get out of the town together was mutual.


	2. Nine of Swords

Richie watched Eddie walk into the grocery store, turning around once to wave goodbye before finally heading inside. The engine hummed along to the radio as he cruised down the street, occasionally joining in to sing the pop songs he recognized. He thought about what he was going to do until work started at eleven. He worked late that night, until 5:45 PM, so he wanted to at least get something done before the shift.  
An hour of no productivity later, Richie tied his apron around his waist and headed out to the counter. His coworker moved over to the bar, motioning for him to take over register, so he reluctantly stepped in and began ringing up orders. He hated working register, constantly talking to customers and having to be polite even when they were rude was emotionally draining. For him, there was almost nothing as painful as having to hold back a “fuck you!” or “eat a dick!” when customers treated him like shit. But he dealt with it, service with a smile, as rage built up inside of him. He was definitely going to go out back on break and kick around some trashcans.  
The bell rang, grabbing Richie’s attention from his magazine.  
“Hey, how’s work?”  
“It’s good, Spaghetti.” he replied. “How’s the store?”  
“You know. Counting soup cans all day, living the dream.” Eddie rolled his eyes. “What’s the special today?”  
“Same as yesterday, but if you’re talking about what I invented for you? I call it the Jungle Juice Latte.” Eddie raised his eyebrows. The other workers standing around looked annoyed, he came in almost every day while he was on break to say hi to Richie.  
“It’s made with a little bit of every syrup we have. Let me know if you want me to make you one.”  
He took a sip and grimaced.  
“Geez, Rich, that’s disgusting. I think I’ll just go for a vanilla cappuccino.”  
Richie made the drink, taking his time while chatting with Eddie, taking his time partly because he was distracted by his friend, and partly because he wanted to keep him in the coffee shop for as long as possible.  
He glanced at his watch and bit his lip.  
“Sorry, my fifteen minutes is almost up.” he said. “Call me tonight? Any time after five, maybe we could go down to the arcade or the diner and get dinner.”  
“Okay, will do. Have a good rest of your day.” Richie frowned a little, mostly joking, but somewhat seriously. After Eddie stopped by, the rest of his shift felt so much longer than the first half. He watched him leave, pausing in the doorway.  
“I probably won’t.” he said, finally heading out back towards the store.  
Eddie’s boss was so much stricter than Richie’s, he had gotten banned from the supermarket while Eddie was working, or at least talking to him while he was working. But if they were in the same building, there was no way they weren’t hanging out, so the ban essentially applied from ten to five every day; they had gotten caught drinking sodas in the backroom or ducking behind shelves to chat too many times. So instead of a reciprocal visit to Eddie at work, he did as he planned earlier and kicked trash cans around in the alley. He didn’t have cigarettes on him, but he did have a lighter and a half-smoked cigarette he found in the old coffeecan everyone used as an ashtray.  
Fifteen minutes later, Richie finished emptying coffee grounds into the trash can and looked back out the window, noticing a flash of orange and far-too-familiar face out of the corner of his eye. His gaze jumped to it and whoever it was had already gone, but it sent adrenaline surging through his veins. The hair reminded him of the clown, and it scared him, because he had never seen that frizzy texture dull-rusty hair on a human person before. It must have been Pennywise, he figured, back to finish off him and Eddie and the rest of the Losers.  
He didn’t know what to do. There were three hours left in his shift, and he couldn’t leave. His boss was already pissed-off enough for his persistent tardiness, and he didn’t want to lose his job. The tremendous amount of caffeine in his system didn’t help his anxiety, either, as he began to regret the last two espresso shots, but before he could decide what to do, a rush of customers entered the coffee shop and he had to push the thoughts away to attend to them, and eventually calmed down, convincing himself that it could have been anyone, and it must have been, because they had killed Pennywise. Still, a vague anxiety overcast the rest of his day, and he was far more aware of the scars on his chest than usual. They weren’t aching or stinging as they sometimes did during flashbacks, but he couldn’t ignore them as he normally did.  
He got home a few minutes earlier than usual, so the falling sunlight still dusted everything outside. Remembering what Eddie had told him at the coffee place, he tossed his bag onto the couch and clicked the phone off of its hook, punching in the phone number that had become borderline instinct to dial.  
The line rang a few times, and he began to shift from foot to foot nervously. It wasn’t like Eddie to let the phone ring; he was always quick to pick up. Twice more, and it clicked, Sonia’s voice on the answering machine.  
“Hello,” she began.  
“Hey, is Eddie there?” Richie asked.  
“You’ve reached the Kaspbrak residence. Please leave a message and we will get back to you right away. Bye.”  
It beeped, and he said nothing, wondering where he could have been. Eddie did tell him to call him any time after five, right? He placed the phone back on the hook, thoughts beginning to spiral, checking his watch, it was almost six. He had never even heard the answering machine before, because when they planned to talk on the phone, Eddie was there to pick it up, so his head was spinning to figure out what must have happened.  
His first thought was that Eddie had been walking home and gotten hit by a car while crossing the street, then his mind jumped to the idea that the grocery story was being held up and Eddie was at gunpoint. And then he remembered this morning and that face he saw a flicker of, passing the coffee place, and he began to panic. It was the clown, it had to be, he had showed up that morning and shown Richie just a glimpse of his horrible face to taunt him, so he’d know what had happened to his best friend.  
He didn’t know what to do or where to look, reaching for his car keys and heading outside. His first thought was Neibolt House-a thought that sent a chill trickling up his spine. Nonetheless, he got in his car and drove straight to it, getting out and slamming the door, the sound echoing across the neighborhood. He crept up the stairs, even more broken-down than they used to be, and peered into the house. It was dark and he felt his heart leaping out of his chest, pushing away the thoughts of what happened here, reminding himself that he had to do it for Eddie, but he couldn’t help but remember.  
The worst thing, he thought, was the sensation of Pennywise’s hot, disgusting breath on his face, and how he turned away to prevent himself from inhaling it, the terror of the unknown and what might have happened next, fear of being killed, those long, sharp nails digging into his shoulders and throat as that clown gripped him with a painful, strangling strength. He felt weak, almost embarrassed, that he was unable to defend himself, and self-hatred for doing nothing to stop it, as though there was anything he could have done. The countless yellowed teeth that could have torn him to shreds, the idea of getting bitten or even scratched by those teeth turned his stomach.  
“Richie, what the fuck? Can you hear me?” Eddie shook his shoulder with enough force to give him whiplash. Richie jerked away from him, skittering backwards across the porch. “What are you doing here?”  
“I…” He held up his hands, noticing that they were stinging, and saw that they were filled with splinters, red drops of blood blossoming as he watched.  
“Jesus Christ. What are you doing here?” He fell to his knees in front of Richie and took his hands, examining them, wincing at the sight of the blood.  
“I was looking for you, you didn’t pick up the phone.” Richie explained, feeling faraway. His hands gripped the steering wheel, tendons flexing, knuckles turning white at ten and two. He wondered where he was driving and how he was driving with all of those splinters. He jerked the wheel to the left, veering around a corner. He wasn’t this shitty of a driver, was he?  
Eddie walked around to the shotgun side of the car and opened the door, helping Richie out of the car, feeling almost proud of himself for making it home without crashing. He would have appreciated that more, if he didn’t have to attend to his fucked-up best friend who had spent the entire ride home spacing out and staring through the windshield at nothing.  
“Seriously, I don’t know what you were doing at that fucking house again, we never go...”  
“… did you get so many splinters? It’s like you tried to get as many as you possibly…”  
“Richie! Listen to me!”  
Eddie shouting at him like that, with a tinge of panic in his voice, brought Richie back to reality. He was sitting at Sonia’s kitchen table where he had eaten too many silent and awkward dinners. His hands were wrapped in band-aids, the old rag next to him covered in tiny bits of wood and splotches of blood.  
“What?” he asked, and Eddie sighed with relief.  
“Thank god, I was starting to think you were going comatose or something. What the fuck happened to you?”  
“I don’t know…” he trailed. “I was looking for you at Neibolt and then you were there and now we’re here. I don’t know.”  
“Why were you looking for me at Neibolt? I got held up at work, one of our circuits overloaded or something and a bunch of freezers died so I had to move a ton of stock, and then I was on the way home and I saw a car with the lights still on in front of that house, which was weird enough, but then I noticed it was your car. Why would you go back there?”  
“I thought you were there, when you didn’t answer the phone, I thought I saw-” he halted, swallowing his words. “I thought I saw Pennywise earlier today and figured he must have gotten you. I went to look.”  
“Richie, that motherfucker can’t hurt us anymore, you know that.”  
“Maybe he’s not actually dead, you know?”  
Eddie furrowed his brow, not allowing the sadness he felt for his best friend to show. He slid out of his chair onto his knees in front of Richie, clasping those bandaged hands in his own, looking him directly in the eyes. With a crack in his voice, reminiscent of his thirteen-year-old self, his words sounded more like he was begging than asking a question.  
“He isn’t dead, Rich, and he never was. Don’t you remember?”


End file.
